Music and people hold my life together. I describe experiences, discoveries and insights, often connected with music and with teaching and playing piano. The blog is a way to stay in touch with friends, and may also be food for thought for anyone else, especially people connected with music and the piano/
Musik und Menschen halten mein Leben zusammen. Ich beschreibe Erfahrungen, Entdeckungen und Einsichten, oft in Zusammenhang mit dem Klavierspiel und dem Klavierunterricht.

Monday, April 16, 2012

When I relocated to Maplewood three years ago, it was necessity more than conviction that led to my beginnings as a private teacher. I couldn’t find a suitable job at a music school - but I didn’t look very hard, either. In 30 years of teaching at community music schools I had experienced the whole range of joy and frustration that working in an organization can bring: the positive energy and the inspiration that is generated when people come together at the same time at the same place to do the same thing in the same spirit, but also the negative impact of miscommunication and destructive spirits, the energy that is taken up through the struggle with the administration, the exasperation that can result from the constant struggle for funds. While I found it extremely satisfying to finally “own” my work in my private studio, I also knew that I would have to recreate the benefits of the community experience on my own from now on, most of all, for my students.

The very first piano teacher I had as a child came to our house. She didn’t appear to be a very happy and exuberant person, and I didn’t like her very much. The only other person in my world who played the piano was my mother. She also supervised my practicing in the beginning - and we weren’t a very fortunate combination, either.

Things took a decided turn for the better when I started to take lessons through the “Jugend und Schulmusikwerk der Stadt Koeln” - a cooperative between the public schools and instrumental teachers in my home city of Cologne, Germany. Lessons were held in the public schools after school hours, students participated in school concerts, and had their own recitals in addition to that. Suddenly, there was a community of people who did the same thing as I did. I still had to practice alone, but I had friends and classmates who did the same. We shared what we did, we inspired, and occasionally competed with each other.

In my private studio, monthly performing class has proved a great way to form a sense of community. I can’t make anyone attend, and I’ve given up trying to find a date each month that works for everyone. The main thing is to give the opportunity. I consider two students plus myself a mini group, but most of the time, it we have more attendants than that. People have told me that they like to come, and once you like something, you make an effort to be there.

Whatever you play at the class doesn’t have to be performance ready. It’s understood that you’re still learning, and you’re trying out how far you’ve come. Playing for others is a mirror of your own learning process. Things you can get away with when you play by yourself are suddenly out in the open, mishaps throw a spotlight on aspects of your playing that need attention in practice.

It’s ok to play only a section of a longer piece, and you don’t have to play new repertoire every time, either. That way, students get a chance to witness each other’s growth over time. They understand that learning is a process, nobody ever goes out there and presents perfect results.

With few exceptions, non-performers are not permitted at the class. That way, everybody is in the same boat. Everybody gets to take a bow and play, and everybody gets to be part of the audience. Usually, I provide the listeners with the music. Just managing to sit quietly and follow along without dropping the book can be a big accomplishment for the young students.

I often give a listening assignment, asking students to listen for dynamic contrasts, articulation, hand balance. It’s also possible to give each student a separate task - including the observation of the performer’s hand position and posture - and have everybody “report” at the end. Students realize that certain challenges are the same, even if the pieces are different. Sharing practice suggestions is welcome, and discussions between people who have played the same piece can be very inspiring.

Each month, there are three classes, according to age groups: elementary school children, teenagers and adults. Levels of playing vary, however, and I think that’s an inspiring aspect. The beginners get a sense of what’s possible and where they’re going. More advanced students are reminded of their own beginnings. They realize how far they’ve come, they get a chance to share their own expertise and contribute to the progress of their fellow students.

The adult group covers the whole range from beginners to advanced. “When we first came together, I was simply blown away by the repertoire, how difficult this was, and how anyone could possibly play this,” one of the adult beginners recently commented on an advanced student’s playing. “Last time though, I could actually hear what the two of you were working on, details of articulation and shaping, balance between voices, and I realized what a difference it made.” She is learning to listen to someone else’s playing, with open ears and awareness, and without that, there is no way of improving your own playing, regardless of the level.

In addition to performing, students often play together at the classes. Four people can play a simple round with one hand at one piano. To start with they have to pick it up by ear, which provides ear training and a chance to review intervals at the same time. Someone can write it down on the whiteboard, the others have to keep checking if it’s correct. As soon as there is a mistake, the next person takes a turn.

With one person at the piano, one person at the white board, and everybody else listening and guessing, you can figure out “mystery” song and find out how difficult this is without the rhythm:

Example: Key of C-major, starting point: G - same note - second up - second down - third up, second down etc (Happy Birthday) Whoever recognizes the song first can choose and present the next one. Filling in the correct rhythm on the white board is an additional challenge that usually requires the joint efforts of the entire group.

While the monthly class may be the backbone of the community experience, it is not the only element. Every month, I write the “studio news” to inform students and parents about important dates - classes, recitals, auditions, concerts, and topics of general interest, like our system of “practice points.”

Children and teenagers get a practice point for each day of practicing they have checked off in the chart in their assignment book. There may be extra points for additional special assignments. For 20 points you get a certificate, for 100 you get a little gift. The total is listed on a chart on the wall of my studio, that is updated every week. It also includes attendance at performance classes, recitals and “special projects” - like playing piano in the Jazz Band of your school.

It was meant to be a means for the students to keep track of their practicing and learning when I started it, rather than a competition. Students do take notice where they are, though, and exceptional accomplishments yield comments: “What do you do when someone reaches 200 points?” I was asked recently. I’ll have to start a second line - it will happen soon, and chances are it will happen more than once!

Duets and ensembles are great, but coordinating different schedules often poses huge obstacles. With a minimum of time that has to be spent together, story suites and theme recitals give students a chance to feel as part of a group. It also directs focus towards the common project rather than the individual student, and it can be an excellent means to reduce stage fright. The students have to learn their pieces, and the story or the theme holds the program together. A few simple props, accessories, costumes make all the difference, and one dress rehearsal is usually enough to throw it all together - occasionally, you can even get away without it.

The repertoire of story suites is abundant, but if you don’t find anything suitable, you might as well make up your own, or have the students do it, just by asking them to invent a story connecting different pieces from their own repertoire. With simple means and a little imagination, many things are possible.

In one-on-one lessons, the relationship between the student and the teacher is at the core of the learning process. Anything that creates connection beyond that relationship builds community - a learning community, when students play together or hear each other play, a sharing community, when students go out to play for an audience and share what they’ve learnt through their lessons and in their practicing. Music brings joy, and joy easily withers if there is no chance to share it.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Steinway Hall in New York City was closed to the general public on Thursday evening, but a selected audience was admitted to the rotunda to hear a very special concert. Signs had been posted on the door, informing everyone that their picture might be recorded and appear in public. Several people who looked very professional were running around carrying big movie cameras on their shoulders, and one camera was mounted in the back between the rows of chairs.

A beautiful concert grand had been positioned by the window facing the street, personally chosen by the evening’s performer, Seymour Bernstein, who sat next to it, preferring the company of the film crew and the audience to the solitude of the Green Room before his recital.

Actor Ethan Hawke, who led through the event, welcomed everybody and told us about his chance encounter with Seymour, the dinner invitation at a friend’s house, where they had “hit it off.” At the time, Ethan had been plagued by crippling stage fright, and started to question his profession and the art which he had loved and been committed to ever since he was twelve. “Over my head in a midlife crisis, I ran into this piano teacher, who told me all these things about the integrating powers of musical practicing and performing, how it teaches you to make connections between emotion, reason and physicality, and how everything you learn in music can be transferred into real life.”

At the time, neither Ethan nor Seymour knew who the other was - they googled each other, stayed in touch, and Ethan hatched the plan to shoot a documentary about Seymour, and his idea of music as an integrating force in human life.

All this happened a little more than a year ago. In the meantime, the documentary is well on its way - several interview sessions have been filmed, a master class at New York University, and now everything had been set up for Seymour to play his first recital in 35 years.

Wanting more time to write and compose, and disillusioned by the corruption and recklessness that seemed to determine the world of the “music business,” he had ended his performing career when he was 50. Listening to the CDs he has released of some of these performances, the recordings he has put on Youtube in the meantime, and the way I’ve heard him play at lessons or master classes, I’ve always regretted that I didn’t know him back then. What a treat to get the chance to attend a live performance now.

Already with the first piece, James Friskin’s arrangement of Bach’s Chorale “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” (God's time is the very best time) Seymour took us to a different place, and out of time altogether. The voices sang, and the colors of sound made you forget that you were listening to a piano. Be it the trust that speaks through Bach’s music, the sparkle and transparency of a Scarlatti Sonata, the mystery in the third movement of Schumann’s Fantasy op 17, the longing in Brahms’ Intermezzo op 118 No 2, every note was rooted in personal feeling and deep conviction. It was the result of the artist’s connection to the music and to his own emotional world, coming to life through his hands. A personal, authentic voice spoke through the interpretation, formed through the experience of a life time. The program ended with one of Seymour’s own compositions, the “Birds,” colorful and imaginative miniatures originally written for children.

After the musical part of the program, the audience had the opportunity to ask questions, share comments and observations. The integrative powers of music that can make us better people sometimes seem to fail when confronted with real life. Some great artists put a lot of effort into separating their art from the rest of their lives. Other aspects come in, self-respect, the way you use, and treat your talent. While we tried to put it into words, the most convincing answer to the questions about truth and authenticity that Ethan had mentioned in his opening words lay in the music itself, and in Seymour’s playing.